The present invention relates to card holder, such as a menu cardholder.
Restaurants frequently display menus in card holders that are placed on tables. Customers may refer to these displayed menus at any time during their stay at the restaurant, even after a waiter has removed their main menu. Often, these displayed card-menus list products different than those listed in the main menu and may catalog items such as drinks, deserts, or other specialty items.
Due to limited space on typical tabletops, it is desirable that card holders be compact, and because menus may change frequently, they should be easy to replace. Also, many menu cards are printed on both sides so they may be viewed from either side of the holder. It is therefore desirable that a card holder be able to present cards equally well from either of its sides. It is also desirable to display cards at an angle to the vertical because card holders are usually placed below the eye level of customers sitting at the table. Thus, cards that are angled upwardly are easier to read.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,976 discloses card holder with a base and a single vertical support member. Opposing ends of a clip fit into parallel grooves disposed on the sides of the support near the support's top. Cards with a slot near one of their ends fit onto the clip and hang therefrom when the clip is engaged in the grooves.
The support disclosed in the '976 patent may stand vertically or at an angle to the vertical. Either way, cards hanging on at least one side of the support will hang vertically, instead of at a more comfortable viewing angle.
The teaching partially remedies this by providing wings that extend from the support to the sides to display the cards at the desired angle. These wings, however, can hold a card at an angle only if the card is sufficiently rigid to rest on a wing without bending. Soft cards would merely bend around the wing, becoming more difficult to read. Furthermore, protruding wings are relatively fragile and increase manufacturing difficulties.
The '976 patent also discloses differently shaped supports, such as S-shaped supports. Different portions of the S, however, would have the similar disadvantages as the wings when supporting cards.
To remove the clip from the grooves, a user must pull the clip open, spreading clip's ends and extracting them from the grooves. This manoeuver requires two hands to execute with relative ease and risks placing excessive force on the clip if the user is not cautious.
The prior art does not provide an easily loadable and unloadable card holder that can fully support cards at an angle on more than one side of the holder.